Yusef, in thinking over his situation, felt thankful that he had not been deprived of his camel in an earlier part of his journey, when he was in the midst of the desert.  He hoped that he was not very far from its border, and resolved, guided by the stars, to walk as far as his strength would permit, in the faint hope of reaching a well, and the habitations of men.  It was a great relief to him that the burning glare of day was over:  had the sun been still blazing over his head, he must soon have sunk and fainted by the way.  Yusef picked up the small case of medicines which Sadi in mockery had flung at him; he doubted whether to burden himself with it, yet was unwilling to leave it behind.  “I am not likely to live to make use of this, and yet—­who knows?” said Yusef to himself, as, with the case in his hand, he painfully struggled on over the wide expanse of dreary desert.  “I will make what efforts I can to preserve the life which God has given.”

Struggling against extreme exhaustion, his limbs almost sinking under his weight, Yusef pressed on his way, till a glowing red line in the east showed where the blazing sun would soon rise.  What was his eager hope and joy on seeing that red line broken by some dark pointed objects that appeared rise out of the sand.  New strength seemed given to the weary man, for now his ear caught the welcome sound of the bark of a dog, and then the bleating of sheep.

“God be praised!” exclaimed Yusef, “I, am near the abodes of men!”

Exerting all his powers, the Syrian, made one great effort to reach the black tents which he now saw distinctly in broad daylight, and which he knew must belong to some tribe of wandering Bedouin Arabs:  he tottered on for a hundred yards, and then sank exhausted on the sand.

But the Bedouins had seen the poor, solitary stranger, and as hospitality is one of their leading virtues, some of these wild sons of the desert now hastened toward Yusef.  They raised him, they held to his parched lips a most delicious draught of rich camel’s milk.  The Syrian felt as if he were drinking in new life, and was so much revived by what he had taken, that he was able to accompany his preservers to the black goat’s-hair tent of their Sheik or chief, an elderly man of noble aspect, who welcomed the stranger kindly.

Yusef had not been long in that tent before he found that he had not only been guided to a place of safety, but to the very place where his presence was needed.  The sound of low moans made him turn his eyes toward a dark corner of the tent.  There lay the only son of the Sheik, dangerously ill, and, as the Bedouins believed, dying.  Already all their rough, simple remedies had been tried on the youth, but tried in vain.  With stern grief the Sheik listened to the moans of pain that burst from the suffering lad and wrung the heart of the father.